Archive for September 2015
breezed aperture
Wandering, ever wandering, and warnings.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One found himself in Maspeth and scuttling past Mount Zion Cemetery recently, on the Maurice Avenue side. As is my habit, vast self recrimination and a certain series of guilty remembrances was underway. One likes to pull at scabs, feel the texture of the many scars which scribe, and generally feel rotten about every decision I’ve ever made. This thought process is actually something I schedule away for when I’m by myself on these long walks around the Newtown Pentacle, so as to keep others from having to experience who – and what – I really am.
One was musing about footprints while walking past the great burial ground. There’s the environmentalist and hiker etho about “leaving behind nothing but footprints,” the historian’s one about “tracking the footprints of giants,” and the Brooklyn one about “sticking my boot up yo ass.” The latter is what I’m focused on at the moment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Being Creative” doesn’t necessarily mean wanting to draw a picture in my current world view. When I use that statement these days, I’m mainly thinking about Dharma. You can either create or destroy in this world we commonly hold, and the choice you make between those two poles reflects whom you aspire to be. Struggling to be “creative” against my darker urges to “crush, kill, and cause anyone I disagree with to perish in fire” is sort of what one has been aspiring to in the last decade.
Saying that, one grows weary of having to contantly reaffirm that I am exactly who I claim to be and not the shadow agent of some moneyed cabal. I have no agenda, no goal, no desire. All I want is for environmental conditions to not suck as hard as they do, and for the City to stop dumping raw sewage into the water. I also want to remind people that places like Mount Zion have a long and storied past, and that few remember the Maspeth Gypsies or the Native Americans who once called this place home as institutional memory is in short supply amongst modern people.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is enough to breed paranoia, and the next person who accuses me of being a shill for some malign corporate or governmental entity is going to receive the full Brooklyn footprint mentioned above, and I wear a size 11 shoe. This line of thought, however, is what one struggles against. It’s “not creative,” rather it’s destructive.
Nothing is achieved by destruction save the feeling of superiority over others. It gets nothing done, and the divisive process of internecine warfare amongst like minded individuals actually results in those aforementioned malign corporate or governmental entities winning the day as the field has been cleared of opponents. We agree on more than we disagree about, let’s fix the things we agree on and then argue the rest when the work is done.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Green and growing places are good. Concrete and highways are bad. Can we agree on that?
Thoughts like these are what one prefers to think about, rather than planning the destruction of enemies and anticipating the lamentations of their women and children. Don’t mess with a humble narrator, accusers, because a great wheel will roll right the hell over you and crush you down into the poison loam of Queens.
You don’t want to make me angry, as you won’t like me when I’m angry.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
October 3rd, 2015
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets
noisome herd
There really is no hope for the future, is there?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor saw a humble narrator headed eastwards towards the ancient hillocks of Maspeth from Astoria, and since time was short, a bit of the old mass transit was called for. My plan involved getting to Elmhurst by train and grabbing a Q53 bus at Queens Blvd. which would carry me up the surprisingly steep slope that 69th street is set into to my eventual destination nearby Borden Avenue and the LIE. Accordingly, one found himself at the estimable Steinway Street stop of the R and M lines.
This particular subway station is one of two I frequent, the other being 46th street. Both are in somewhat deleterious condition, as least as far as the passenger visible areas are concerned, but are fairly serviceable. A bit of steam, bleach, and elbow grease could work wonders for these facilities but… well… the borough motto is… after all… Welcome to Queens, now go fuck yourself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a lot of fingers you can accusingly point at our commonly held municipal employees, particularly the ones who work for the NYCTA division of the MTA. The transit system is the last true home of trade unionist sentiment, and often it seems that if a fire was to break out down in the sweating concrete bunkers that the trains move through, it would be allowed to spread if no representative of “Fire Alarm Pullers Local 103” were present.
Fair enough, I guess, as the Union guys and gals who work down here are battling against the Doctor Doom of faceless bureaucracy on a daily basis. Nobody beats the MTA for what the military would call “fold up fucktard” policies, or at least that’s what I’ve been told by people who work for them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The situation, however, pictured above isn’t the fault of either Union Labor nor Albany Wonk. This one is on us. There’s observably been a growing issue with litter citywide, wherein entire generations of New Yorkers seem to have been able to get all the way from Kindergarden to College without once being exposed to the concept that you shouldn’t just abandon your trash wherever you feel like it. The concept of finding a proper receptacle for trash is alien to most, it would seem.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Never mind the eclectic collection of beverage containers and bits of paper, who tosses a soccer ball into a Subway pit? If a train’s leading edge caught this ball in Astoria…
Seriously, what is wrong with you people, would you do this at home?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not to be a scold, but here’s the way it’s supposed to work:
If you have generated trash during your daily rounds – say, a water bottle or crumpled up piece of foil from a sandwich or something – you are meant to hold on to it until you spot a proper receptacle. Said receptacle is called a “garbage can.” A group of Municpal employees will ostensibly come by at somewhat regular intervals to empty these cans. What you don’t do is a) just drop it, b) throw it onto the Subway tracks.
I swear, what this City needs is a good plague.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
October 3rd, 2015
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets
creaking joints
I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The compulsions to record and categorize everything one encounters, which a humble narrator suffers from, must be related to some form of narcissism – which is the favorite “go to” syndrome for every arm chair and amateur psychologist’s diagnostic assessment. “Dude, you’re a total narcissist,” might be an appropriate statement were it not for the fact that when I reach out to touch the eidolon of decay staring back at me from beyond a pane of silvered glass, that monster always recoils in shock and horror and retreats.
Pictured above, a locomotive unit of the Long Island Railroad transiting the Sunnyside Yards, full of people who – unlike me – have somewhere else to go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Dude, you’re a freaking sociopath, and all you’re doing is trying to prove how shit the rest of the world and everybody in it is while making yourself out to be somehow above it all” is one I’ve heard as well. In all actuality, I think the rest of you are amazing, and wish that I could somehow function on the level that others seem to effortlessly maintain. One can barely pull himself out of bed in the mornings and climb across the giant piles of ennui and hubris which litter my floors. Buying an egg sandwich and an orange juice for breakfast is a moral dilemma for one such as myself.
Pictured above, illegal dumping along Skillman Avenue, wherein a bag (?) of paint was left to harden into putty on the sidewalk. In all seriousness – who has a bag of paint? Doesn’t paint usually come in a bottle, jar, or can?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If I’m not disappointing someone with my personal failings, abrasive and egomaniacal behavior, moral assertions and precepts, or preconceived notions – my day is ruined. A friend of mine once suggested that I should start a business offering “freelance, unsolicited criticism.” I would walk into a bank, tell the manager that they had set up the ropes all wrong, and hand them a bill.
Many employees of the government would offer that “freelance unsolicited criticism” is what I’ve actually been offering them for the last few years, particularly a group of NYC EDC employees whom I recently sat down with regarding their feasibility study for decking over the Sunnyside Yards who received a less than salubrious series of exultations regarding their ruinous plans. The usual “who do you think you are” expression was quite visible from my side of the table, incidentally.
Pictured above, the 7 line of the MTA’s New York City Transit Authority transiting the elevated tracks over Queens Plaza South at the intersection with Skillman Avenue. We don’t call it NYCTA anymore, but the MTA still does.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has a serious desire for a short vacation, and to visit some vernal wonderland in which the cessation of daylight brings actual darkness. To experience quiet, and the sort of silence which causes a city dwellers ears to ring with tinnitus for a couple of days. I’d like to see something nice, and not chase drunks away from my door for just a day or two.
Unfortunately, one remains trapped within the concrete devastations of the Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
October 3rd, 2015
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets
could furnish
As mentioned yesterday, while you’ve been sleeping, I’ve been out working.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This happens every so often to a humble narrator. Circadian rhythms short circuit somehow, and a distinctly nocturnal phase occurs. Desire to record scenes observed remains, however, and specialized kit is required. Queens looks so interesting at night, as the concrete devastations are generally well lit. Above – the Long Island Expressway’s 106 foot trussed apex over the Dutch Kills tributary of the fabled Newtown Creek.
This sort of shot is tripod country, of course.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking north along Dutch Kills in the direction of the Sunnyside Yards and Queens Plaza, a scene familiar and loved, for it depicts the waterway’s turning basin which once fed maritime traffic into the Degnon Terminal via a barge to rail facility. These shots were all captured using my trusty old Canon G10, btw, mounted on a magnetic tripod. This particular bit of camera support allows a secure connection to ferrous surfaces via the use of multiple rare earth magnets, which in the case of the shot above was the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge itself. The magnet tripod, in effect, transforms the bridge itself into a tripod via its electromagnetic grip.
These are ISO 80 15 second exposures, captured with a narrow aperture – f8 – for those of you who are curious shutterbugs. Additionally, the light meter was set to the “tungsten” temperature, which caused the light captured to favor the blue side of the spectrum rather than the oranges and reds which street lighting normally produces. The camera was outfitted with a remote release cable, and I just had to time out the sequence of traffic lights on either side of the bridge to ensure that passing vehicle traffic didn’t introduce a ruinous vibration to the bridge which would transmit up to the lens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Walking back to Astoria in the darkness along Skillman Avenue from Dutch Kills, certain apertures in the fence lines of the Sunnyside Yards allowed me to secure and trigger the camera fortuitously. The 7 train, notorious for its multitudinous and unexplained delays, was just sitting there waiting for a humble narrator to record it.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
September 20th, 2015
Glittering Realms Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets
joined to
Shots from the 11103, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One seems to have caught the “night shooting” bug again, and my various bits of camera support have been dusted off. The shots above was captured one recent evening during a thunderstorm, and represents a 15 second interval. NYC never looks better than it does during the rain.
Someday, a real rain will come, and wash away the iniquity and corruption which pollutes our community – which is a polite and verbose version of the sort of thing that Robert Deniro’s Travis Bickle character in the Taxi Driver movie might have said. Since officialdom in City Hall seems hell bent on recreating their romantic version of that era, let’s remember what NYC was actually like back then, as it was hardly romantic.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above is what I call “cloud porn.” It’s porn inasmuch as it doesn’t deliver anything other than a puerile thrill and doesn’t say much. It’s an interesting shot for me, technically, from the capture point of view. The evening thunderstorm which was deluging the bodega in the first shot was still building during the afternoon shot above, and controlling the light in order to build the cloud contrast was an interesting exercise.
It’s somewhat representative of my mood at the moment, btw, with all the foreboding and dire portent that our little community here in Astoria has been experiencing in recent months.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Astoria’s Broadway has been under siege by a large group of drunks and vagrants, a group who are composed of base characters that generally represent the worst sort of individual. Inebriated hordes descend upon the neighborhood every day, drunkards and ne’erdowells who seem to be beneath the notice of law enforcement. The municipal response to them is to send in the Fire Department, rather than the Police.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
September 20th, 2015
Glittering Realms Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets
The Newtown Pentacle 